Lace II

by Shirley Conran

  “Honey, I’m not the only one who’s asking,” said Sandy. “Colonel Aziz gave me a really hard time in his office for two hours. After all, you told the world that Lili’s father was dead, then suddenly all these guys got telegrams.”

  “For all we know, Sandy, ten other rich men may have received that telegram. Next week, the lunatic who’s writing them is probably going to send one to John Travolta and President Carter!”

  Sandy persisted. “Who was it, Judy?”

  “Lili’s father was a British soldier who was killed by the Communists in Malaya.”

  Sandy said, “They’ll check.”

  Judy jumped up from her seat and leaned over the balcony, with her back to the other woman. Sandy added, “Colonel Aziz said they’d do blood tests. He’s spoken to Lili’s doctor in Paris and he’s getting Lili’s medical records. A modern blood test can really narrow down the field, it’s not like one of those old maybe-he-is tests.” Sandy’s voice was soft but warning. “They’re going to find out, Judy.”

  Judy turned around to face Sandy. Beyond the darkened balcony, just inside the sitting room, moths were dancing around the fringed, pink-silk shade of a table lamp. As Judy watched, one of them swooped too close to the hot light bulb and fell, fluttering in agony, on the tabletop.

  Sandy stood up and put an arm around Judy’s shoulder. “Honey, I’m rooting for you. We’ve got a lot in common, after all. I’m a small town girl. I know what it’s like to be no one from nowhere, and how tough it is to get started. I’m sure that there was a good reason for whatever you did or said.” She patted Judy’s shoulder comfortingly. “But I’m a card-carrying twister of the truth, and it takes one to know one. I’m sure it wasn’t pleasant to hear Colonel Aziz ask if you’d slept with all these guys. But watch what you’re saying, because I can see that the Colonel doesn’t believe anything you’re telling him.”

  In the cool, soothing darkness, only the lapping of water under the elaborate balcony could be heard. Since Lili disappeared, Judy had been in a state of almost unbearable tension, she hadn’t slept for two nights and, even before that, she had been exhausted by months of anxiety, due to her multiple business problems.

  Suddenly, Judy cracked under the strain, buried her face in her hands and started to cry.

  Sandy stroked Judy’s hair and softly reassured her. “Don’t fret, honey, you’re not the first girl to screw more than one guy in a month.”

  Through her sobs, Judy snuffled. “It wasn’t the way you make it sound, Sandy. They weren’t all in one month and besides, I’ve never been regular.” She gulped, snuffled again, and blew her nose. “The whole trouble started when I was a fifteen-year-old student in Switzerland and working as a waitress. For the first six months, I had to work too hard to have any fun. One of the waiters, Nick, had a crush on me but, physically, the chemistry just wasn’t there, for me. Then, one night, I was raped. It was on my mother’s birthday, February the 7th. It’s silly, the things you remember. He was one of the guests at the hotel.”

  “Poor baby. What a stinking, rotten way to lose your virginity.”

  “When I saw the bastard in the hotel afterward, he didn’t even recognize me. I meant nothing to him, but that experience changed my life. It made me feel degraded. So I never told anyone what had happened. It was my dirty secret.” She blew her nose again. “Then I met Curtis Halifax, and he made me feel clean again.”

  Like people who confide their secrets to a complete stranger on a train, because of the unbearable urge to unburden themselves to someone, and because they feel that never again will they meet that stranger, the overwrought, despairing Judy told Sandy the story that she had never told anyone, the secret that only one person had guessed, the tale that had started so long ago in the small, Swiss luxury resort of Gstaad.

  February 14, 1949

  * * *

  Judy remembered the stars on the ballroom ceiling, as the Swiss accordion band played “La Vie en Rose,” at the St. Valentine’s Day Ball. She had just carried a heavy tray of glasses at top speed up from the kitchens. Without a word, a hard-pressed barman grabbed the tray from her thin, childish hands, and crashed it on to a bench. “Aidez-moi, paresseuse!” he snapped.

  Judy picked up two of the still-wet glasses. The barman quickly loaded glasses from the tray onto the rack above his head. “Vite, vite!” he shouted again. Judy stood on tiptoe, as she tried to push the glasses onto the high wooden rack, but she couldn’t reach it.

  “Mademoiselle n’est pas assez grande.” It was the worst French accent Judy had ever heard. From the customer-side of the bar, a bow-tied American boy smiled at her.

  Judy grinned. “That sounds like an East Coast accent.”

  “Philadelphia. I’m Curtis Halifax. Listen, I’m tall enough to put those glasses away for you, if you’ll pour me a bourbon?”

  Periwinkle-blue eyes crinkled, a bright, frank smile dimpled his cheeks. He looked the sort of tall, clean cut, wholesome guy you saw on Coca-Cola ads, thought Judy, as she swiftly stacked the dirty glasses.

  From their little table by the dance floor, Kate in cream moire and Maxine in pale-blue silk waved at Judy, who explained to Curtis, “They’re my friends.” Curtis turned and looked at them, gave a brief glance to the other rich, pretty girls sitting round the dance floor, then firmly turned his back on them, clearly fascinated by the tiny blond American waitress behind the bar.

  There was a sudden roll of drums. All heads turned to the glass ballroom doors, where the guest of honor, Prince Abdullah of Sydon, stood stiffly by the side of Pagan, in a sparkling gray-tulle ballgown. Curtis gave them a brief glance, then turned back to Judy. “Do they ever let you out from behind that bar? How about skating on Sunday?”

  Judy didn’t have time to reply, as a waiter dashed forward with an order for the royal lemon juice.

  “Nick, I can’t read your bar slips,” Judy called. “The head barman will have your head on a platter if you don’t write more clearly, sweetheart.”

  Curtis looked worried as Nick dashed off with his tray of citrons pressés. “Sweetheart?”

  “A figure of speech. We’re just good friends.”

  * * *

  Curtis was no better at skating than he was at speaking French. While Judy whizzed around the crowded rink, Curtis struggled to stand upright but, every time he let go of the barrier, his long thin legs went gliding out from under him. Eventually, he gave up, and sat with Judy on the terrace, sipping hot spiced punch. Curtis said, “Rumor has it that you have a fiancé back in West Virginia.”

  Judy wasn’t sure that she wanted Curtis to know about her nonexistent fiancé: she had invented Jim as a smoke screen, behind which she could escape from involvements she didn’t want. Judy’s goal was to learn fluent French and German in a year, then head for Paris to make her fortune. Her days were spent in the language laboratory and her evenings as a waitress at the Imperial Hotel, in order to pay for her year in Switzerland. There was no place in Judy’s schedule for a man.

  But Curtis took no notice of Judy’s good resolutions. Every day, as soon as the sun left the valley and the shadows lengthened across the narrow, snow-packed streets, Curtis appeared in the hotel coffee-bar. Once, when her supervisor started to give Judy sharp looks because of the time she wasted talking to Curtis, he apologized to the man with Ivy-League charm, then tucked a big tip into the beer stein by the till, where the staff tips were pooled.

  The following day, as Curtis slid into his usual seat, with a bright-eyed smile that was simultaneously knowing and innocent, the supervisor winked at Judy and jerked his head. “Here’s your rich boyfriend again.”

  Judy was thoroughly charmed. The boys she had known back home in Rossville were awkward and gauche; they preferred beer, football, and fishing to girls. But Curtis had beautiful manners, which is why Judy felt completely at ease with him. Curtis treated Judy like a lady, and, shell-shocked by the peculiar, alien atmosphere of Europe, she enjoyed being with a fellow American, who was as home
sick as she was. They told each other what they missed about America: Hershey bars, thick milk shakes, steaks that were not leathery flat slices of bifteck which stuck in your teeth. “And what I wouldn’t give to go to an undubbed American movie,” said Curtis wistfully. “I can’t understand films in French.”

  Curtis first kissed her after they’d been moonlight skating, and were watching a torchlit display on the ice. As Judy felt the rough, male touch of Curtis’ fur-lined, camel-hair coat, she no longer felt homesick, but safe, warm, and happy in his arms. She also felt a delicious melting-inside sensation. “It’s too cold to kiss outside,” said Curtis. “Let’s go to my place.”

  * * *

  Three weeks later, Curtis sat on the edge of her bed, pulling on his white socks. “Of course I love you, Judy. Ever since St. Valentine’s Day, remember?”

  Judy sat up in bed, pulling the quilt round her shoulders. “Then why are you going back to Philadelphia to marry someone else?”

  “I’ve explained it over and over. This was all planned a long time ago. Debra and I were pinned on her seventeenth birthday and everyone expects us to get married, especially Debra. My father, and my grandfather before him, built up the business with the aim that one day a Halifax would become President of the United States. That’s what they both live for, and I’m the only heir, so I have to try for them. It’s my responsibility.”

  And I’m not your responsibility, thought Judy sadly, as Curtis earnestly continued. “To get a crack at the presidency, I need money; politics is an expensive business. And I need the right wife.” Curtis looked uncomfortable as he reached for his snowboots.

  “You mean a rich wife.”

  “I’ve grown up with Debra. I’m very fond of her and I couldn’t possibly hurt her. The whole of Philadelphia has known for a year that we planned to marry at the end of her debutante season.”

  “But why didn’t you tell me?”

  “When I first saw you, being bullied by that Swiss barman, something happened to me. I just wanted to put my arms around you, take you away, and look after you forever.” Curtis couldn’t look her in the eye, but he was trying to be honest. “I can’t figure out how a guy can love two women at once, but one minute I was drinking bourbon and the next minute I couldn’t think about anything but you. You’re so different from the girls I know back home, you’ve got so much pep and go, you’re so full of life. I guess I just fell for you.”

  “But how can you love me and marry someone else?” Judy scrubbed away her tears with the corner of the quilt.

  “I can because I must,” Curtis said miserably. “Anyway, you’re going to marry that guy in Rossville.”

  Judy said nothing. Once again, she wished that she hadn’t invented that goddamn Jim in West Virginia.

  * * *

  The little scarlet cable car swung in eerie silence, suspended from one taut metal rope, high above the sparkling white valley. Doll-sized skiers swooped soundlessly over the ski piste below as Maxine listened to her Aunt Hortense’s scurrilous Paris gossip and hoped that the two smart Italian women and the boy in the black ski suit couldn’t understand English. The two Italian women were middle-aged, pearshaped, and wore mink-lined parkas. They were immaculately made-up and coiffured and, despite their pristine pairs of Head skis, they obviously had no intention of skiing when they arrived at the top of the mountain.

  In her gravelly voice, Aunt Hortense confided to Judy, “Of course, everybody likes to think that Roland is tapette and so when Zizi found him in the…” She stopped abruptly as the cable car gave a frightening lurch, halted, then started shaking from side to side, as the couplings up above ground noisily.

  There was a moment’s sickening silence. Judy felt helpless and trapped, as if the walls of the car were closing in on her and growing smaller; she wondered how long the air supply would last, and whether they’d freeze to death before help arrived, as claustrophobia started to set in.

  “Dio mio!” cried one of the Italian women, and she lunged to the end of the car. Her shifting weight made the cable car bounce, as if it were about to uncouple itself from the cable and plunge onto the rocks far below.

  “Don’t move!” Aunt Hortense said sharply, in Italian, but the woman ran back to her original place.

  “Santa Mamma Mia!” Pink-mink parka started to beat her breasts. “My children! My husband! What will they do?” She threw herself into the arms of her friend. The cable car, which was the size of a small elevator, lurched under the sudden movement, then swayed sickeningly.

  Aunt Hortense’s craggy face looked mildly regretful as she briskly cracked the back of her ski mitt across the woman’s face. “Your husband and children would not want you to get hysterical, Signora.” Aunt Hortense’s wide purple mouth softened. “There’s no danger, so long as we don’t move. We should all sit down on the floor very carefully. Down there, they know what’s happened to us, and the mechanics are working on it. What we must do is think about something else. I suggest a game of poker.”

  Mauve parka whispered to pink parka, who was blazing with rage as she watched Aunt Hortense flip up the back of her white fox coat, then carefully arrange herself, cross-legged, on the floor of the cable car. She opened her large, crocodile Gladstone bag, groped inside and produced a silver hip flask of cherry brandy, which she handed round to the five other passengers as they carefully sat on the floor.

  “I know there’s a pack of cards in here somewhere.” Aunt Hortense searched in her bag. Her emerald eye shadow matched her Pucci après-ski outfit, and in spite of her shaggy white-fox hat, her beaky nose was red with cold, as she searched for the cards. She pulled out a Swiss army penknife (“So useful for the corkscrew”), a menu from Maxim’s (“Bébé Bérard drew this picture of me the night before I left Paris”), and a battered hand-rolled cigarette, which she hastily put back; then she discovered the cards and turned her wide, enchanting smile on the boy in the black ski suit, as he held out his hand to take the cards and shuffle them; obviously, he was the only other person present who could play poker.

  Half an hour later, by the time the cable car shuddered into life again, the cherry brandy flask was empty, the Italians had lost all their money, and Aunt Hortense was kicking herself for not having called this English boy, Bobby Harris, on a pair of twos.

  * * *

  The restaurant was perched on top of the mountain. Maxine bit into a méringue as she leaned over the wooden rail of the sundeck and looked around at the shadowed peaks, jagged against the sapphire sky. “Maman wrote that you’ve chosen me some lovely summer clothes from Christian Dior,” she said. Aunt Hortense blotted her purple lipstick and smiled indulgently. “What are godmothers for?”

  Judy felt angry and rejected, humiliated and crushed, as she looked at Maxine. Thank heaven she’d never told the others just how involved she had been with Curtis. Curtis would never have dared dump a girl like Maxine, Judy thought. Dumb girls from poor families in small towns are always going to get screwed by hypocritical rich bastards with fancy manners, because they had all the power and all the know-how, they could use plain folks like Kleenex, then throw them away when they’d served their purpose. Feeling like a depressed sparrow, huddled in her old navy pea jacket, Judy momentarily envied Maxine more than her wealth and social position; unlike her, Maxine was happily in love and the sight of her complacent, sensual satisfaction made Judy feel that twinge of envy. “That’s your third méringue, Maxine,” she said. “Pierre won’t love you if you get fat.”

  “But I’m still starving,” Maxine objected: For a moment, Judy felt violent resentment. Judy’s reluctant memory of the painful poverty that she had endured as a child was triggered when she heard anyone cheerfully say, “I’m starving!” Suddenly, Judy’s knees would tremble, her guts would shrivel, and she would feel as if she wanted to pee.

  She felt a gust of rage as she thought, Maxine has no idea what she’s talking about. Until she left home, at the age of fifteen, Judy had been gnawed by hunger almost every d
ay. Her family in West Virginia had been painfully poor, and the shame had been almost worse than the hunger. Judy remembered the sniggers of the kids at school, because they knew that she would be forced to refuse anything that cost money; Judy also remembered the giggles as she appeared in the same threadbare winter coat, year after year. At first the kids sniggered because her brown coat was far too large for her, an obvious hand-me-down; eventually they sniggered because, when she outgrew the coat, her mother had sewn on cuffs and a false hem, cut from an old gray blanket. “Listen to Judy’s coat!” the kids would shriek with the cruelty of youth; her coat rustled because her mother had sewn newspapers behind the lining, to make the threadbare coat warmer for winter.

  What Judy most remembered about poverty was the humiliation.

  “And how do you intend to avoid starving? Or do you intend to play poker as a profession?” Aunt Hortense waved her gold Bracelets toward Bobby, who was standing next to Maxine and shading his big blue eyes from the sun.

  “My father wants me to be a stockbroker and join his firm.” Something in Bobby’s voice made it sound unlikely. “That’s why I’m a student at the business school.”

  “But what do you really want to do?”

  “I want to be a singer.” He gave Aunt Hortense a crooked grin.

  “A singer? Like Frank Sinatra?” asked Aunt Hortense as Maxine licked her fingertips, stretched her arms to the glittering sun and then unzipped her jacket, thinking that nice boys from good families do not go into show business.

  “Not like Frank Sinatra, not like anybody you know!” Bobby threw her an impertinent, urchin grin.

  “Then do you play the piano, like Cole Porter?” Aunt Hortense persisted.

  Bobby gave Aunt Hortense a cherubic smile. “I play the piano, but not like Cole Porter.” Still modest at eighteen, Bobby could also play the guitar, the flute and the organ; if they intended to take music scholarships to Oxford or Cambridge, the most gifted music students at Westminster school were allowed to practice on the massive, seven-keyboarded organ in Westminster Abbey. Bobby Harris’s stockbroker father had firmly told him that any kind of career in music was out of the question, but Bobby wouldn’t and couldn’t stop playing, any more than he could stop breathing.